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friends of lafitte greenway

Our commitment is to foster a vibrant and active greenway that encourages economic development, and links adjacent neighborhoods, cultural features, historic sites, retail areas and public spaces. Opened to the public in the November of 2015, we continue to promote this great public space and host community events and programs. To support Friends of Lafitte Greenway donate today and stay up-to-date with our newsletter!

Help us build, program, and promote the Lafitte Greenway as a great public space.

Call for board members: 2018-2021 Term

Application Deadline: Friday, January 5, 2018

Friends of Lafitte Greenway was formed in early 2006 by New Orleans community members who saw an opportunity to rethink the city's landscape to enhance livability, environmental sustainability, open space equity, and health. The organization built a network of diverse constituents who shared its vision of preserving the continuous open space in the former Lafitte rail corridor, and developing a greenway amenity that encourages active living, facilitates economic development, and links adjacent neighborhoods, cultural features, historic sites, retail areas, and public spaces.

The Lafitte Greenway opened in November 2015 as a 2.6 mile pedestrian and bike path and linear park, connecting neighborhoods from Armstrong Park to City Park. Friends of Lafitte Greenway is the City of New Orleans’ official partner, working together to program, develop, and steward the Greenway.

Friends of Lafitte Greenway is a community-driven organization, guided by a Board of Directors, members, volunteers, and staff. Our mission is to build, program, and promote the Lafitte Greenway as a great public space.

During your 3-year tenure the organization has big plans to:

Develop a strategic plan in 2018 to define programmatic and development goals

Strengthen our partnership with NORD and the City of New Orleans to ensure that the Greenway is a safe, vibrant, and active public space

Increase membership, sponsorship, and grant revenue

Support capital projects on the Greenway, such as community gardens and the Greenway’s extension, and advance the community’s vision for the Greenway

The New Orleans bike share program will be launching this winter. The first 70 stations will roll out over the course of 4-6 weeks beginning in December; out of those intial 70 stations five will be along the Greenway. The locations along the greeenway are N. Carrolton, N. Jefferson Davis, N.Galvez, N. Roman, and Basin St. Click here to access an interactive map of all the bike share stations.

In recent decades, once-struggling cities have been reimagining themselves by evolving from 20th-century-style manufacturing centers to 21st-century hubs of commerce and culture. While each city realizes its own evolution in its own way, one important ingredient of these transformations is consistent among them all: city parks. Like the cities that house them, urban parks take on different forms, from signature downtown parks to reclaimed industrial railways and corridors. Now these corridors, or linear parks, are coming to be recognized as an important part of modernized transportation systems, connecting neighborhoods and residents to new opportunities.

In New Orleans, for instance, residents use over 100 miles of walkable, bike-able pathways every day. Before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, New Orleans had just 10 miles of trail. In 2009, the city received $9.1 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Disaster Community Development Block Grant program, making the transformation of the Lafitte industrial corridor into the Lafitte Greenway possible with help from the Friends of Lafitte Greenway.

In 2015, its first full year of use, 272,000 people walked or bicycled the Greenway. That's an impressive number, but it contained a surprise: A study by the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that 80 percent of weekday morning and afternoon cyclists use the Greenway not for recreation but for transportation to and from work, school and shopping.

Linear parks like the Lafitte Greenway demonstrate what is possible when we fully consider the role of parks as transportation infrastructure. The Greenway concept is a roadmap to a more sustainable future for New Orleans, supporting public health, recreation, stormwater management, neighborhood investment and job opportunities through connections to low-cost public transportation.

By this time next month, residents and tourists in New Orleans will be able to pick up a bicycle at one spot in the city and drop it off at another, the realization of a lengthy effort to diversify public transit in the city.

Officials this week revealed the 70 locations where 700 bicycles will be available as part of the city’s first bike-sharing program, scheduled to start in December.

The sites are largely concentrated in the Central Business District, French Quarter and other neighborhoods along the Mississippi River, with some in Treme and near City Park.